NMA- blog 12

This is the last week of my new media art class. This course was one of my most challenging as I struggle with most computer programs. The course was focused on the program Adobe Flash, in the beginning I was completely lost and thought I would never get accustom to Flash. However as I spent many hours working on simple button projects I began to become used to the little specifics that need to be done in order for my projects to run smoothly. I can now build a website that can navigate with buttons back and forth successfully, make photo slide shows, open external links, incorporate videos, add moving effects to images, and include movie clips and animations.  I definitely saw great improvement the more time I spent on the program.  

This is the first time I ever wrote a blog and really became engaged in the online blogging world. Through exploring the internet and different blogs, I find myself returning to a few blogs that entertain me or that are useful and knowledgeable. Postsecret is one of my favourite blogs, the idea of everyone posting anonymous secrets interests me. Seth Godin’s blog is also one that I follow frequently and take advice from. One of my good friends introduced me to him earlier in the semester; he generally focuses on marketing, innovation and business in general, speaking about work life balance often.

I also learnt a lot about the development of technology and how it affects the way we consume and share information. The ability and accessibility of the internet to most of the world allows for us to experience and explore cultures, ideas, news, books, videos and much more. User created content is growing as the devices to upload information grow and become faster. 

NMA- blog 11

Patricia Piccini is an artist who explores the concept of what is natural in the digital age. She focuses on the human form and its potential for manipulation and enhancement through bio technical intervention. Her work includes a lot of science as she incorporates activities such as growing human tissue and organs from stem cells. Her work is a scientific process and ethic is often questioned.

According to the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia,

“Piccinini has an ambivalent attitude towards technology and she uses her artistic practice as a forum for discussion about how technology impacts upon life. She is keenly interested in how contemporary ideas of nature, the natural and the artificial are changing our society. Specific works have addressed concerns about biotechnology, such as gene therapy and ongoing research to map the human genome… she is also fascinated by the mechanisms of consumer culture.”

Below is one of her most famous pieces she gives the sculpture of what seems to be an animal feeding its babies human qualities.

Her work mixes humans and animals, the idea of post human and emergence of theory of evolution can be explored. Piccinini’s art can be considered to be bio art.

Another interesting artist is Orlan who is the only artist to use plastic surgery as her medium of choice. Since 1990, she has undergone a series of planned performances during which her face is surgically morphed through the use of plastic surgery. Her intention is not to become beautiful but rather to suggest that beauty is unattainable and the process horrifying.

Cosmetic surgery on its own is a sense of cultural identity and the way society and culture impacts on individuals and their choice of appearance. It has been brought into art and reality.

NMA- blog 10

We often discuss how the advancement of technology affects us; here is an artist that pushes the limits to show how far our body and technology can go. Stelarc is an Australian performance artist, with most of his work stemming from the idea that the human body has become outdated. Stelarc has altered his body using technological advances because he thinks that along with computers, our bodies must be constantly upgraded to help adapt to the technological culture we have created. In the pieces in which he has used technology with his body, you can see the intelligence and research that must have been done to successfully complete his work.

Stelarc also used suspensions in a lot of his work. When first seeing pictures of this, I was freaked out but after reading more about him, and staring at the pictures for a little bit longer, I began to actually appreciate the piece. He pushes his body to the limits, suspending himself above the ground by the hooks in his body.

 He says he doesn't see himself as the art, just the person who is using his body to complete the piece. I find Stelarc extremely dedicated, and each of his pieces is unique.

Below Stelarc implanted a third ear into his arm it is said that he’s also going to implant a mic inside the ear that will connect to a bluetooth transmitter, so the ear can broadcast audio from the internet wirelessly.

NMA- blog 9

Week 9- Geoffrey Batchen-

Phantasm- Digital Imaging and The Death of Photography [1994]

This article discusses photographs and how their creditability is changing over time due to the increasing development of digital imaging. Viewers will question the medium of photography as a conveyor of information. This results in photography having to deal with the crisis of technology and changes in ethics, knowledge and culture. 

The article talks about manipulation, how photographers intervene in every photo taken, just by their decisions of what they decide to photograph and what is cropped. Digital imaging allows for humans to be creative which can be seen as a problem, putting a marking on a photo to allow individuals to know that the photo has been manipulated will result in people casting doubts on its creditability. The change in technology will cause the disappearance of the photograph and the culture it sustains.

NMA- blog 8

I explored the web site of one of my favourite artists named Andy Goldsworthy, a British artist who collaborates with nature to make his artworks. Through art and nature we can use this to get closer and better understand our selves, feelings, environment and much more. His art is powerful and somewhat spiritual to me, it gives me a great feeling and I really enjoy looking at it. Below are three of his creations that are similar using different elements of the earth that I think are amazing!

I looked up his web site; it is very simple and easy to navigate through. He has 5 main buttons on his home page that also appear on each link. They are Biography, Philosophy, Works, Credits and Exhibitions. His web site is effective but I think it could have had a better way to view his art, possibly in a slide show compared to medium size images that don’t open to a bigger version. The exhibitions tab allows you to navigate to external main sites. I also think even though he went for a simple layout to display his art he could have maybe incorporated a little more to its style and a few more of his artworks. Another useful tool he could have added was possibly a way to purchase images.

NMA- blog 7

Find an example of an idea/image/etc being ‘appropriated’. Look for media or advertising for examples. Do you think this example is ‘appropriation’, as we defined in the context of the artistic world, or do you think it could/does border on plagiarism or copyright issues?

Banksy a famous unidentified UK graffiti artist has many artworks that can be considered appropriation. Below is a series of art he has ‘appropriated’ from the Mona Lisa. His work always has a deeper meaning and a lot of the time he just adds to something that may already be there. 

He pushes the limits with appropriation and copyrights. Appropriation basicly is the the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work. In the visual arts, to appropriate means to properly adopt, borrow, recycle or sample aspects of man-made visual culture. Strategies include "re-vision, re-evaluation, variation, version, interpretation, imitation, etc. Appropriation can also refer to the new work itself.

This is a classic example of what Banksey does, he “stole” this quote from Pablo Picasso who said, "Bad artists copy. Good artists steal."

In 2005 artist Banksy secretly installed his own artwork in four of New York’s major art museums: The Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Natural History. He went in during opening hours and stuck his artwork up on the walls between famous paintings. Asked how he was able to hang his works without being noticed by museum guards or security cameras, Banksy responded rather opaquely. "You just have to glue on a fake beard and move with the times," he said. He also stated that “I've wandered round a lot of art galleries thinking, 'I could have done that,' so it seemed only right that I should try," he wrote. "These galleries are just trophy cabinets for a handful of millionaires. The public never has any real say in what art they see." Below is a still image of Banksy putting up his artwork in the museums’, each image complete with a legitimate name plaque and explanation.

Below are a few more appropriated artworks by Banksy-

NMA- blog 6

Wow, i just spent over an hour checking out the postsecret blog before writing this, I LOVE it. I was laughing out loud at some of them. All of the postcards are creative and many have hidden meanings and are quite deep. The variety of post cards range from light hearted jokes to meaningful, touching secrets. Some have political meanings and others state the most random things

A twist to this blog was that at first i just thought it was a cool site with only post card creations that  people posted, but then I realized how deep and meaningful and advanced Postsecret is. There was a “PostSecret Live” which is a multi-media presentation by Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret. You can see the postcards that were banned from the books and hear the stories behind the secret.

Postsecret can actually act to positively help and inspire individuals. There are different chats with secrets categorized in topics such as, secrets of addiction and recovery, mental health, spirituality, LGBTQ and many more. You can click into a blog and post a question and others interested or in the same position give you feedback and advice on how to handle a situation.  

There are video blogs showing people sharing their secrets. They also show Frank giving seminars and helping voice their secrets so they can open up.